Monday, January 6, 2014

my neighbor popped by for a visit, and wanted to see my basement. I'm only telling you this because wild horses won't drag the name out of me, I'm positive this neighbor would never read this blog, and even if she did, she would never remember she did this.

But I remember.

Anywho--

this neighbor really wanted to see my basement. Which confuses me, because back in the day it was the dark, dank, cave of cement. It wasn't finished.

And it was covered in boxes I hadn't emptied out and it was embarrassing, and I kept saying this very thing over and over, and everything in my body language strongly emphasized that I did not want her in my basement.

A body blocking the doorway to the basement generally gives one that indication.

So you can imagine my surpreese when she sidestepped me and hauled A downstairs to see the lovely cement basement embarrassment.

A woman's basement is her own business, dang it!

I'm still sensitive about it, clearly.

But speaking of the basement that has now been finished and is still occasionally embarrassing--

sigh. Deep breath. I can't believe we're gonna talk about this.

Once upon a time I painted and board and battened this room to be my "craft room" (heh. I laugh about this now. Heh. Heh heh. It currently holds all the toys.), and I planked the ceiling.

Yeah. I planked the ceiling. I thought it was gonna be so bad ace.

To sum up:

seriously crappy idea. Basically it sucked because it looked bad, it looked like I was trying to cover up water damage or something on the ceiling, I sucked at doing crown moulding at the time, and most importantly,

I never finished it.

I left this huge space on the end that I never got around to. And people come over, and they head down to my basement, and they're so confused why this room has a planked ceiling that never got finished.

Over 3 years and I can't finish a project that totally embarrasses me? It was time to poop or get off the pot.

I went back and forth a hundred times over it, and ultimately decided to take it down. It's just not my best idea. I don't have to take it so personally.

You know what sucks? Besides this project?

It took me a couple days to put all these planks up,

and only a crow bar and one hour to bring them all down,

and another half hour to pull out every single brad nail, stack the pieces back up, and vacuum up the little splinters.

Is it just a bad paint job? Is it warped? It's hard to tell in the pics exactly what the problem is. I was thinking of doing this to my unfinished basement ceiling, but maybe now I'll reconsider. I've seen it done with mdf, but maybe those pictures are liars.

When I saw the first pic, I thought...she planked the ceiling? and then thought, that is cool. But you left us hanging here, girl! Also, a lot of jealousy over all that bright light shining into a basement!! jealous I am !!! hugs, cathy

Totally unrelated, but I saw this & thought of you: http://www.buzzfeed.com/ariannarebolini/truly-upsetting-vintage-recipes

Isn't it nice to be the kind of person that someone thinks of when they see a bunch of disgusting recipes, like Tuna & Jello Pie? I think there are some in there that qualify as aspics, even. Mmmmm....aspic.

Weird request...wanting to see someone's basement. Did she suspect the former owners of moonshine production or disembowelments down there? checking it out for suspicious stains on the concrete?

I personally liked the ceiling, but then, i have that horrid drop ceiling stuff that can pass for bulletin boards and my basement is ugly to boot (it is the 'badly done English pub' look that we haven't altered too much, just less bad looking).